Notes: In which I speculate over what, exactly, the Wildervale looks like, and allow my gruesome imagination to run hog wild for a couple thousand words. This story is set approximately eight months after the end of DA2. Edited 4/9/11. (The end of this section has been grating on my nerves for days now. Finally fixed it.)

It was terribly quiet, traveling alone.

Anders sat on a rocky peninsula jutting out into some unnamed lake nestled deep inside the Wildervale and watched the last vestiges of daylight disappear behind the crest of the western hills. The nighttime sounds of cooing owls and crickets starting up their chorus and the repetitive lapping of the water against the stones at his feet kept his ears from buzzing, but that was all. It would have been nice, he thought wistfully, to have someone to talk to. Even Nate Howe.

He slapped a mosquito making merry with the side of his neck and pulled a face at the red smear of gore on his palm. If only he could have been an indoor revolutionary. That would've made his life much easier.

He shook his head to dispel the little seed of a thought, to keep it from taking root. Worthy causes were meant to break your back and sunder your resolve, to put your convictions to the test. He'd written that down on another occasion when he found himself pining after the simple creature comforts he couldn't afford to want—a cup of tea, a warm bed lacking fleas, the life he left behind at the Hawke estate in Kirkwall—but was that his opinion, or Justice's? "This is what must be done," he murmured into the air. Were those his words, his voice, or Justice's?

The fire he'd conjured earlier crackled invitingly on the narrow stretch of beach a few yards behind him. Anders sent one more pensive look towards the horizon, then got to his feet and began picking his way back towards camp.

A twig snapped in the undergrowth. Out of the dark, a familiar northern brogue said, "Don't move."

Anders stepped on a loose stone and nearly lost his footing. Unsteady, he drew his hands up and squinted into the trees. "I'm unarmed."

"Clever words, from a mage." Sebastian Vael stepped out of the woods and onto the sand, his bow held aloft with an arrow notched. The string creaked tautly. "Hello, Anders."

Anders fixed his eyes on the pronged arrow head pointed straight at him. "You know," he began, "you would have made an excellent templar."

Sebastian remained disturbingly impassive. "Shut up, or I'll shoot you down where you stand." Obligingly, Anders pressed his lips together. The prince jerked his head towards the shore. "Walk forward, slowly. I'm watching you."

Anders tried to estimate Sebastian's chances of achieving a lethal shot at this range, should he try to incapacitate the prince long enough to make a break for the woods. The sheer force of the arrow's impact would wreak havoc wherever it landed if it didn't do him in outright, and summoning the energy to heal himself while running wasn't an option. He was well and truly fucked.

He stepped down from the rocks, eyes still on the arrow Sebastian kept trained on him, and said, "Well this is exciting. What now?"

Sebastian didn't answer him. He didn't need to. Instead, he raised his voice and called out, "Lieutenant, bind this murderer's hands." A soldier sporting Starkhaven colors and flanked by two armed swordsmen emerged from the tree line and approached him with purpose. She carried manacles that glowed faintly from the neutralizing runes inscribed on their surface, and Anders grimaced as she fastened them too tightly, felt the rough iron pull against the insides of his wrists in a manner that would leave the flesh rubbed raw in no time.

He flexed his fingers tentatively; his senses felt dulled, like someone had pulled a blanket over his face and stuffed cotton into his ears. So much for magicking his way out of this predicament. He shot a vindictive look Sebastian's way, watched the prince as he lowered his bow. "What now, Sebastian?" he repeated coldly.

The prince was a hair's breadth away from righteous savagery, and looked very much like he didn't know what to do with himself now that he had his sought after prize bound in front of him. He took measured, predatory steps towards the mage, his hands curled into loose fists at his sides, and circled him once, sizing him up. His handsome features had darkened with bitterness, his eyes fierce and unforgiving and frighteningly familiar. They stared at each other wordlessly for a long, tense moment.

He had ample warning, saw Sebastian draw back his fist, but all he did was close his eyes and brace himself. Sebastian's punch hit him squarely in the jaw with so much force that Anders' head snapped backward and he spun clear around, throwing up his shackled hands to catch himself against a tree trunk. The bark scraped angrily across his forearms, and he saw nothing but a vast expanse of stars and swirling lights that splintered suddenly with white hot agony as Sebastian kneed him in the small of his back. He seized a fistful of Anders' hair and flung him by his scalp into the sandy soil, where he landed hard on his side, jarred by the impact, and instinctively jerked up his arms to protect his head.

Which left his midsection exposed and vulnerable. Sebastian advanced on him relentlessly and delivered a kick to his stomach so sharp and brutal that Anders spasmed, shuddering violently as he vomited all over himself. He had nothing left to bring up when he was kicked a second time, then a third, and lay bruised and dry-heaving in his own mess as Sebastian paced away from him, hand to his forehead as though stunned by his own brutality.

Anders coughed wetly, his whole body trembling and screaming in his ears, and stared at the back of Sebastian's head. He tongued his split lip. "Surely it would've been less effort," he wheezed, "to just shoot me." Provoked, Sebastian spun around and struck him in the jaw with the spurred heel of his boot, and Anders choked on a breath of air as he rolled over onto his back, felt a loose molar tickling the roof of his mouth. He rounded his lips and spat it out in a mist of red.

Sebastian seized the front of his robe with both fists and hauled his limp, unresponsive body halfway upright. Anders lolled his head to the side, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, but Sebastian jerked him back, forcing their eyes to meet. "Now," he said through clenched teeth, "I ask the Maker to give me the strength not to kill you myself before we get to Starkhaven. I want you to see justice firsthand as you answer for your crimes."

The tang of iron swam hotly around Anders' tongue, his vision flickering at its edges. He was going to die. He had nothing left to lose. With a reddened smirk, he rasped, "Sounds fun," and spat a mouthful of blood in Sebastian's face.

Sebastian jerked his head back too late, grimaced, and dropped Anders back into the dirt. He stood up, methodically withdrew a kerchief to wipe his face clean. "Lieutenant, tether this monster to my horse. I will happily drag him to the gallows as a bloodied corpse if he can't keep up. He deserves no mercy."

The lieutenant hesitated only for a moment, before complying. "Yes, your highness."

Sebastian ran Anders ragged through the vale.

He imagined, during the fleeting moments in between blackouts, that this was what being keelhauled must feel like, only with more drowning and fewer brambles. There was no way he could have kept up with the Rivaini stallion's long-legged stride for more than a few desperate paces, and so when his boot caught on a protruding root and he toppled forward, he didn't bother trying to scramble upright again. He was dragged along by his bound and straining wrists like a slab of gamy meat in need of tenderizing, the grass and earth and stones tearing at fabric and exposed skin like he was nothing tissue paper. At his first agonized shout, a humiliating and involuntary plea for mercy that Justice recoiled at wildly inside his skull, Sebastian spurred his horse straight into a gallop and charged out of the thatch of trees and over the downs, his pace purposefully vicious.

If the horses had had the stamina for it, Anders had no doubt that he would have been dragged all the way to Starkhaven by his broken wrists and left to die alone in some dank jail cell. As it was, it seemed only Sebastian had the stomach for this extended torture, because after less than an hour, his lieutenant reined in her horse and demanded, "Highness, please, you're going to kill him!"

Sebastian clicked his tongue and slowed his mount to a canter, a trot, and then stopped it altogether. The momentum of their violent pace sent Anders rolling straight into the horse's back legs, and it kicked him, adding insult to injury. He grunted and tried to haul his shattered limbs as close to his midsection as he could, wheezing each labored breath through his broken nose. His eyes nearly swollen shut, he squinted through the long grass at the prince's noble silhouette in his saddle. Sebastian looked back at him with something like disgusted wonder in his clear blue eyes, but whether or not he'd lost his taste for savagery yet, Anders couldn't tell. He wasn't sure it mattered at this point.

The lieutenant dismounted and approached him with dread. "Maker," he heard her gasp, "is he dead?"

"No," Sebastian said, his stare hardening with a cold resolve that reminded Anders, ironically, of his own. "Unfortunately."

The soldiers around him shifted restlessly in their saddles. Sebastian looked away from Anders to survey their surroundings. The river valley spread out away from them in all directions, thatches of trees interrupting the horizon. It was a clear night, the stars spread across the sky in a great swatch of blue and black and purple. "Make camp. We press for Starkhaven at first light."

Someone hacked in half the rope that kept him tethered to the prince's horse. Sebastian stared down at him where he fell in the grass. "You deserve every excruciating moment of this," he said fiercely, "and the Maker will see you suffer worse in the Void." He gathered his reins and wheeled his horse around, trotted away.

Bloodied nearly beyond recognition, Anders lay with the crickets and other earthy crawling things, unmoving and undisturbed and watching the blades of grass with dull interest as the wind shifted them tenderly. The overwhelming hopelessness of his situation was so absurd that he tried to laugh, but was too broken to do anything other than choke on the air. At least he was allowed the precious luxury of real hate. That didn't require the movement of muscle or tendon. It filled him up and muted his agony long enough for him to spit, "Go f—fuck yourself, Vael." But Sebastian was already gone.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and jerked involuntarily. "Please, be still." It was the lieutenant. She pressed an open flask of water to his lips. "Drink."

Justice shamed him for it, but he did. He wasn't ready to die.

The Viscount of Kirkwall and his men arrived an hour before dawn.

Tied to a post so he couldn't escape—though how Sebastian expected him to escape with more bones broken than whole, he wasn't sure—Anders drowsed listlessly when he heard the horses' hooves against the soil and the clink of bridle and bit. He thought it was Sebastian pulling up camp at first, until the air around him suddenly exploded with activity, soldiers leaping from their pallets and shouting in alarm and outrage as the Viscount and a full company of armed soldiers bearing his standard rode into the firelight. Sluggishly, Anders tried to pull himself to his feet, but his ankles crumbled under his weight and he collapsed, out of breath and reminded acutely of his agony.

Sebastian stormed out of his tent towards Hawke with fire in his eyes. "No," he snarled, his voice striking through the fray like lightning, "you will not drag this abomination from justice a second time, Viscount. I forbid it!"

Hawke rested his hands on the horn of his saddle and stared back at Sebastian, undaunted. "Do you." At his right hand, a familiar tattooed elf dismounted his horse and moved to intercept Sebastian. They stopped in front of each other separated by a distance of mere inches. "I scarcely believe how Kirkwall deals with its criminals," Hawke continued, "is any business of Starkhaven's."

"Starkhaven will uphold the divine law of the Chantry when Kirkwall fails in its duty to do so, which it has." Sebastian cut his eyes to the elf in front of him. "Get out of my way, Fenris."

"Not likely," came Fenris's gravelly reply.

"Then Kirkwall thanks Starkhaven gladly for their involvement in apprehending a wanted fugitive, and appreciates their cooperation in turning him over to the appropriate authority. Namely me." Hawke swung his legs over the saddle and landed easily on his feet. He moved towards Sebastian, but for a brief moment his gaze lingered on Anders where he slouched against the post. Anders' heart quickened in his chest. Half a year without him, and the sight of that untameable brown hair and those fiercely noble brown eyes brought everything he'd thrown aside tumbling back to the forefront of his thoughts.

Sebastian moved to meet him, his men falling in behind him with their hands on their weapons. "You're a fool if you think I don't know this is personal, Hawke."

Fenris reached for his greatsword, but Hawke lifted a hand to stop him. He met Sebastian's eyes. "Take a good look at what you've done to him, Sebastian," he said, and jutted his jaw towards Anders. "Tell me this isn't personal for you, too."

Anders saw Sebastian's head turn a fraction, before the prince stopped himself and fixed his eyes back on Hawke. "That monster should thank the Maker I didn't do worse. After what he did to Elthina, Her Grace—" His voice cracked unsteadily, and he wavered as though doubting himself. He drew a breath. "He ideserves/i to idie/i! I won't let you stay my hand, not when I'm so close—"

"So close to what? Vengeance?" Hawke cut him off with a dismissive gesture. "You're no better than he is. Fenris, cut him loose."

Fenris started forward. Sebastian seized his arm."Don't you dare."

"Get your hand off me."

"This is not a negotiation." Hawke stepped between them, forcing Sebastian to loosen his grip. Fenris jerked his arm free and moved towards Anders without looking at the state of his face. Hawke watched him go, then leveled Sebastian with a shrewd stare. "We're taking Anders back to Kirkwall, Sebastian, and what is done with him there is for me alone to decide. You will respect my authority over my city and its citizens, or you will face dire consequences. It's your choice."

Fenris's knife sawed through the rough length of rope holding Anders against the post. He caught the mage with uncharacteristically gentle hands as he slumped towards the grass, clotted injuries oozing stickily as movement pulled them open with excruciating slowness.

Sebastian stared back at Hawke. "I won't forget this."

Hawke watched as Anders, incapable of walking, was carried by Fenris like a tattered rag doll to the company's equipment wagon and laid down amid the soldiers' rucksacks and provisions satchels. He looked back to Sebastian and studied him, their shared silence heavy with significance. "Your choice," he repeated, then turned and strode back to his horse.

He pulled himself up into the saddle and gathered the reins. "Move out."

The first thing Anders noticed upon waking was newfound, painless flexibility in his wrists, which now bore the weight of two ivory bands. The second was that he lay in a proper bed in a room more extravagantly furnished than any he'd seen before in his life.

He sat up slowly, still expecting the sharp, stabbing pain of broken bones and torn ligaments, but a quick glance at his arms and legs revealed that he'd been seen to by a healer, and one whose gift for the craft nearly matched his own. He decided to be envious, rather than grateful; he wasn't deaf. Hawke hadn't staged a rescue mission. This was simply a more comfortable prison cell with flexible bars.

"Ah. You're awake." Fenris stepped out of a shadowed corner, his arms folded over his chest. He nodded to the set of clean clothes resting on the nightstand. "Get dressed. Hawke will see you in his study."

Anders drew the covers securely around his waist. "Hello to you, too."

Fenris looked him over, snorted, and saw himself out.

The Viscount's private suite was neatly partitioned off from the rest of the keep, and so Anders passed only a few knowing faces as he left what appeared to be one of many guest suites and wandered, half-lost and half-incredulous, down the main corridor. He could hardly imagine his Hawke living in such austere surroundings—and where would the old hound, Mick, go to stretch his legs without knocking over something undoubtedly antique and priceless?

He quieted himself. What vapid and pointlessly indulgent thinking. He should know better.

Hawke's study door was cracked an inch, allowing a sliver of yellowed light to pass through and spill across the ground. Anders paused outside, his hand hovering over the latch, and steeled his will. He knocked twice. "Hawke? It's—me."

"Come in."

Anders pushed the door open carefully and stepped inside. Hawke sat behind Dumar's old desk at an angle, his fingers steepled in front of himself and his eyes somewhere far away. He looked like a boy playing at king while his father was away, until he looked at Anders and the mage saw the slight wrinkle of crow's feet at the corners of his severe eyes, the peppering of gray beginning to appear at his temples. This new life had hardened and aged him. How many of those tired lines were the work of unending responsibilities? How many could Anders claim as his own?

He didn't know what to say. Longing, and a sudden spike of anger, caught in his throat. "You look—Fenris said that..." he began, and gestured helplessly over his shoulder.

Hawke nodded once. "I did." He motioned with a hand to an empty seat on the opposite side of his desk. "Please, sit down."

Anders walked stiffly to the chair and eased himself down into it. He held onto the arm rests like he might fall into the Void if he let go of them. Hawke shifted in his chair and leaned his weight against the desk. "How are you feeling?"

Anders hazarded a thin smile. "Well, I've certainly felt worse, haven't I?" He looked down at his wrists and held one of them up, showing off the innocuous looking ivory band that had resisted his meager attempts to squeeze it off. "I take it this is your doing. They're a fair sight prettier than the last set, but that's as far as my good humor extends, I'm afraid."

Hawke wasn't smiling. "Don't try my patience, Anders."

"Do I seem contentious? I'm terribly sorry." Anders didn't check the venom that seeped into his tone, and could see the residual warmth in Hawke's eyes, vestiges of a life they didn't share anymore, cooling in response to it. This fight hadn't even begun yet, and Anders already heard it resonating like a death knell. "Maker forbid I react poorly to exchanging one set of shackles for another."

"You're clearly still mad if you were expecting a different reception from me." Hawke dipped his head some and frowned at a stack of neglected paperwork on the corner of his desk. He rubbed two fingers against his eyebrows. "I have a responsibility to this city I can't ignore."

There was something in Hawke's tone that gave Anders pause. The satisfying outrage he'd been nursing since sitting down fell flat in the face of it. He tried to affect neutral, detached interest when he looked back at Hawke, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Why am I even here? What are you going to do with me?"

Hawke pressed his lips together, met Anders' stare, then looked at his paperwork again. "I haven't decided yet."

The words rang hollowly in his ears, as though he was watching a feeling rather than experiencing it. Anders looked past Hawke's head at the dull morning light sifting in past the drapes. He thought of the crickets and the owls and the grass, and the night time sounds he'd ignored while laying, beaten but alive, in the vale. His throat grew impossibly tight. "Are you going to kill me?" he asked.

Hawke's breath left him in a rush and he stood, pushed his fingers through his hair and turned to brace his weight against the window. "I told you," he repeated, "I haven't decided yet."

Anders stared at the back of his head, his shock overwhelmed quickly by incredulity. "Haven't decided—how can you say that? How can you deliberate over my execution in front of me like we're discussing breakfast?"

"What do you expect me to say?" Hawke demanded, then added venomously, "I've never lied to you. I don't intend to start now."

The retort packed more of a punch than it would have if Hawke hadn't had his back turned. Anders endured it with a spurned wince but wasn't cowed. "So that's the best you can offer me? You 'haven't decided yet'?"

"You asked," Hawke shot back and spun to face him.

Anders shot to his feet as well. The timbre of the fight was blessedly familiar, even if the subject matter was something new and horrifying. Even Justice knew the finality of death. "So that's it, then? You save me from the Starkhaven gallows just to have me strung up for all the mage-hating Kirkwallers to admire? I bet that's a favored past-time for your subjects—afternoon tea and a mage-lynching on the square with cakes."

With an old weariness in his voice and eyes, Hawke said, "They don't hate all mages, Anders. Just you."

Just you. Anders' voice retreated somewhere deep inside himself, the fight gone out of him in a word. He wavered on his feet and leaned back to brace his weight against the chair. He looked at the angle of Hawke's jaw where it was covered by his stubble without really seeing it. "And you'd do it," he said quietly, unquestioningly, because he knew the answer even as he spoke.

Something in Hawke's face cracked, and he came around his desk, reached out as though to touch Anders, but stopped himself, his fingers curling in on themselves. He'd gone pale with grief. "You have no idea," he whispered, "how much I didn't want to find you."

There was no comfortable intimacy in the silence that settled between them. Anders felt his ears ringing. "What happens now?" he asked.

Hawke had taken advantage of their silence to gather his composure. He looked fierce again, noble and handsome and untouchable, but his stare had thawed. "There are... decisions, for me to make," he said. "The Knight-Commander will take you to the Gallows. When I've come to a decision-" The mage watched him pause, met his eyes momentarily, and saw them flick away. "I won't leave you waiting."

The corners of Anders' mouth tugged upward grimly. "Small blessings, I suppose."

That night he lay awake in the Gallows, and wondered if Justice would be alone when he crossed the Veil.